This is the blog of China defense, where professional analysts and serious defense enthusiasts share findings on a rising military power.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Army's (not Navy) island garrison

This might come as a surprise to many outside observers -- it is the ground army's area-of-responsibility to garrison and protect China's coastal islands, especially those dotted the Taiwan Strait. Before the 2017 reorg, each coastal province has at least one Coastal Defense Regiment (CDR). They are jointly supported by the local Police Armed Forces Departments(PAFDs) and the provincial Military Distract. This arrangement helped to reduce the overall cost of manned those remote outpost, many of them without access to fresh water. After 1949, many of Coastal Defense units saw action against KMT raids, such as the battle of DongShan Island in 1953 (here)

Shortly before dawn on 16 July 1953, the nationalist commander Hu Lien (胡琏) commanding his troops, totalling two divisions in 13 naval vessels and more than 30 motorized junks, sailed toward Dongshan Island, Fujian, attempting to retake the island from the communists who took the island from the Nationalists three years earlier in the Battle of Dongshan Island. In addition to the two army divisions, an elite paratroop division totaling 2,000 personnel in two brigades was deployed for the mission, and the total Nationalist force committed was just over 10,000.

Before the 2017 reorg, there were one CDR at Shantou Garrison District, one CDR at Zhuhai garrison District, and one LSM Dadui (regiment), one CDR at Zhanjiang military district, Three CDR, one LSM Dahui under the then Nanjing MR and three CDR garrisoned in Shanghai. Up north, there are four Coastal Defense Brigades (two in Liaoning and another two in Shangdong)

Photos of the Beishuangdao Island coastal defense garrison taken Feb 14th this year

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Nanjing MR Landing Ship Unit

Unlike other major military organizations, The PLA ground force also has
organic landing ship units attached to each of the coastal Military
Regions (MR). Nanjing MR's landing ship units are particularly strong
-- boosting its own mobile dry dock and other support ships. However,
those small LSMs are small and only capable of reaching out 110 miles to
the Pacific, East of Nanjing.

Those amphibious assets are not tracked by most PLA watchers and generally ignored by those with only a passing interest.

The Army's own. (N stands for Nanjing)

Previous blog entry;

Friday, March 19, 2010

An Army At Sea

Besides the PLAN, the Army also has an organic fleet for amphibious operations. Curious to see what "combat team" means.

At the beginning of the Year of Tiger, a vessel group of the Nanjing
Military Area Command (MAC) of the PLA staged a maritime joint combat
exercise in complex electromagnetic environment in a sea area of the
East China Sea, symbolizing the leap of the army vessel troop unit from a “support team” to a “combat team”.

Since the founding of the team 8 years ago, the team has gradually
gotten rid of the traditional mode of self-training, self-examination
and self-assessment and actively carried out trans-theatre training,
trans-sea-area support and trans-arm-and-service cooperation. It carried
out joint trainings and joint exercises with more than 30 specialized
teams of 10-plus arms and services in succession.

When it took back a batch of new equipment last November,
it organized trainings on a multiple of key and difficult subjects
including night navigation, navigation under foggy condition, navigation
in the sea area with submerged reef, and navigation by breaking the
ice in its voyage of more than 1,000 nautical miles.

In recent years, the team participated in 40-plus key exercises and
trainings in succession with a total voyage of more than 240,000
nautical miles, and transported troops for more than 80,000
persons/times and heavy equipment for more than 3,000 units. Therefore,
it was awarded the title of “Outstanding Unit in Military Training” by
the general headquarters/departments of the PLA and the Nanjing MAC.